This biography of Ed Stone by his architect son Hicks is a highly personal story of the rather melodramatic life of an architect who came to exemplify the best and worst of the 1950s. Like his fellow Arkansan, Bill Clinton, Ed Stone's rural roots engendered a Southern charm that propelled him to the center of Washington's inner circle and helped him win the commissions to design the U.S. Embassy in India (1954), the U.S. Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels Worlds fair, and the Kennedy Center (1962). Like Clinton, he had a reputation as a womanizer, eventually marrying thrice. His second marriage ended with his wife Maria rampaging through his office, creating headlines in the Daily News. (It was the pretentious Maria, who bestowed on him the Edward Durell portion of his name.)
Interesting as much for the sociology of the times—the Mad Men escapades of drinking and carousing—this book charts the intersection of architecture and soap opera. In one section, it connects Stone’s friendship with Frank Lloyd Wright—and especially Wright's last wife Olgivanna—directly to the breakup of Stone's second marriage. On top of this, increasingly negative architectural criticism of his work eventually destroyed Stone’s reputation as a serious architect—turning academia, the press, and the public against him. Certainly, his Huntington Hartford Museum at 2 Columbus Circle in New York would not have been altered beyond recognition in 2008 to house the Museum of Art and Design had his projects been better appreciated.
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